Treacle Toes
Time
So I wonder why those workers would not also have been supported by the rest if they had identified that the bosses were exploiting them on those terms and argued their case?
Identity Politics: the impasse, the debate, the thread.
- Thread starter danny la rouge
- Start date
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
We won.
Treacle Toes
Time
So you said. This doesn't answer my question though about why the wider union support was 'conditional'.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
It wasn't. That's the point.
Treacle Toes
Time
You said they would not have gotten support/ numbers by arguing that as Pilipino/migrant workers they were being exploited. Maybe I have misunderstood?
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
No, they didn't have the numbers to organise separately.
Treacle Toes
Time
Were they not members of the union then?
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
"Neoliberalism is running into its historical limits, exhausting its ability to stabilise capitalism and pacify those to whom it has doled out poverty and misery. An identity politics that is detached from material and historical questions cannot help us now; neither can faithfully repeating the left tactics of the twentieth century. The process of reconstituting something new, something that addresses the unique situation in which we find ourselves, has begun. We must let go of defeatism and nostalgia, reject crumbs thrown off the table by capital, and watch carefully for openings and opportunities. Anything could happen. Let’s make it something good."
Intersectional Identity and the Path to Progress
Intersectional Identity and the Path to Progress
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Yes. They were.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
In the UK it was born in the late 1970s and early 1980s in Academe, and quickly spread to the political classes and those who wanted to be members of the political classes.
Back then a friend in Lambeth dropped me after I made a joke questioning the logic of her belonging to a black bi womens' caucus - I basically said "you're spreading yourself a bit thin there, how many of you are there, three, four, more?" (there were two). Intersecting identities should be, can and are used to illustrate the cross-cutting and multiplying effects of numerous oppressions, but if you take those oppressions and represent them as qualifiers - as keys to get through doors - then you generate a new set of exclusivities that could in the future generate their own oppressions.
This is why I favour the class narrative as an over-arching "basket" into which these other oppressions can be placed. Our social and economic relations are the primary front on which we, as the working class, are attacked, and currently all other oppressions are informed by that. I'm not claiming that 10,000 years of patriarchy are subservient to class, or that the history of the triangular Atlantic trade should be set aside, so that class can take pride of place, I'm saying that understanding how we relate to capitalism as a class informs how we can deal with those other oppressions here and now, and to treat class merely as another facet of identity risks missing a very apt tool for dealing with those other oppressions.
alsoknownas
some bloke
This article is not wholly dismissive of the politics of identity. Even in the quote above, when she says "...neither can faithfully repeating the left tactics of the twentieth century", and "nostalgia", she is surely referencing -
I found myself in agreement with most of the article, and still very much of a mind that the dismissals of identity politic actions, ideas and spaces are misguided.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
How is it misguided for those with a political philosophy based on class politics to criticise* identity politics
On a previous thread killer b asked a good question for those that consider them socialists and supporters of identity politics.
I mean I think it's very hard to argue that identitypolitics isn't used to attack class politics, there are plenty of examples of it on U75 alone.
Even the slight move to the left in the Labour and Democratic parties (which I wouldn't describe as class politics) was opposed on the basis of identitypolitics.
*I'm deliberately not using your "dismiss' as I don't think socialists dismiss indentitypoltics, rather they see it as part of the problem.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Incidentally do you maintain this view even when the it is the (far)right using/promoting idenitypolitics?
alsoknownas
some bloke
No, and neither do I maintain it when people are using it to abuse their position within groups, exclude other voices, or isolate themselves. But all ideologies and organisational practices are vulnerable to misuse, co-opting, warping out of all recognition, using as a mask for genocide, etc. as everybody on the left well knows (or should do).
alsoknownas
some bloke
Or you could say it's more useful because it unites the experience of both African Americans and Kenyans who might have developed useful strategies to resist similar challenges. As Many non-American black people were disappointed with the transition from Black ---> African American as it broke with the diaspora-wide identity link.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Right so you accept that criticism "of identity politic actions, ideas and spaces" are not misguided per se.
I also don't agree that the BNPs (and the like) use of identitypolitics was/is warping it out of all recognition. Instead I'd argue that it follows from the premises that liberal proponents of identitypolitics accept and argue for. If the white working class are an identity (as more than a few have argued) then it's a nonsense to argue that they are not discriminated against (for example the oft quoted stat that white working class men are the only group with the decreasing life expectancy in the US) and thus need the same political actions and spaces that other minority groups do.
I read this thread from Rob Ford in response Angela rayner's mooting of racial quotas for teaching yesterday - it has some interesting stats about democratic support for racialised policies: it drops off a cliff. In his study, there was less support for (race based) affirmative action here than there is in even the United States.
Now... that isn't to say that teachers shouldn't be more reflective of the body of children they're teaching - but it does say that - even from just a tactical point of view - this is not the way to go about achieving that aim.
Now... that isn't to say that teachers shouldn't be more reflective of the body of children they're teaching - but it does say that - even from just a tactical point of view - this is not the way to go about achieving that aim.
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doodlelogic
arbitrary message here
Why is it that almost all the women world leaders of note are somewhat right wing in one way or another?
The Queen
Thatcher
May
Indira Gandhi
Golda Meir
Angela Merkel
Clinton
Aung San Suu Kyi
The Soviets put a woman in space but often couldn't manage one in the Politburo.
It's fine to say that class should be the centre of the argument and that solving class oppression would necessarily solve other forms of oppression. But even within organisations that left-wingers control, like the Labour party and the Unions, there is a problem getting women to the top. So it's not surprising if women doubt the argument that class identity politics is the panacea.
I don't think the answer is to support the conservatives. I think the answer is to support women and people of colour to lead progressive movements.
The Queen
Thatcher
May
Indira Gandhi
Golda Meir
Angela Merkel
Clinton
Aung San Suu Kyi
The Soviets put a woman in space but often couldn't manage one in the Politburo.
It's fine to say that class should be the centre of the argument and that solving class oppression would necessarily solve other forms of oppression. But even within organisations that left-wingers control, like the Labour party and the Unions, there is a problem getting women to the top. So it's not surprising if women doubt the argument that class identity politics is the panacea.
I don't think the answer is to support the conservatives. I think the answer is to support women and people of colour to lead progressive movements.
alsoknownas
some bloke
I suppose for me that is the crux of the matter - it's how these important fights around say women's right to be a part of major decision-making processes, or Black people's right to not live under the threat of police brutality, are actually addressed. I mean really addressed - by people taking an active and nuanced look at what needs to be done, and going out and challenging the existing structures.
To an analysis where only class-based whole-system-toppling actions are relevant, I can see how much of those developments might seem concessionary and incremental. But these are issues that effect people at the heart of their existence and where action needs to urgently be taken. The problems I have with theorists who don't see the power of people coming together around their own experiences and creating learning and response out of that, is that these campaigns get continually deferred otherwise.
Of course it's true to say that most socialist groups and individuals are wholly committed to anti-racism, anti-sexism, etc., and I know and have been witness to the bravery of those who have fought and stood up against those forces. But who was organising to go lie down in the street when Black people were being murdered by police? Who is it that is actually going to try to promote an equal space for women's voices in meetings? If we all have to wait for the left to get on board with every action, or for communities to include a class-based analysis in order for protest to be legitimate, then we'll be waiting a bloody long time.
It's pretty easy to say you shouldn't campaign for more Black faculty members, when the issue doesn't effect you in the same way (and you may not even have a complete picture of how that kind of exclusion wroughts its effects). It's easy to say you shouldn't have a women's group whilst simultaneously benefiting from an easier route to speaking platforms, etc.
My ideal for grouping and campaigning around identity is that it serves as a university for thoughts and actions around the issues. We'd never of had feminism without women getting themselves the fuck out of shared spaces, getting their heads together, and working out what was unique about their struggle. And the results of that have been, on the whole, brilliant.
I think the left needs to take a more pragmatic (and less dogmatic) approach to these movements. They are ripe for politicising in the best possible way. Look what's happened to Black Lives Matter - true, it was seeped in academic culture from the very start - but this will be the very first time that many of the grassroots activists involved will have seen their own struggles tied up with those of First Nation people (BLM has been active in supporting indigenous land issues), white victims of police brutality, gay and disabled rights issues, etc. That came out of a movement focussed really exclusively on identity at first, but which has a) achieved results, and b) widened its scope.
all world leaders are right wing. being at the top makes you right wing.
doodlelogic
arbitrary message here
Hard to make a case for Attlee and FDR being right wing, or Nehru or Mandela for that matter, but I take your point and now is a different time in world politics.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
It wouldn't be hard, but it would be a digression...
seventh bullet
sovietwave
Class isn't an identity, it's a condition. What class are these 'progressive' women and people of colour, and what interests do they have?
doodlelogic
arbitrary message here
Angela Rayner gave a good speech yesterday.
mojo pixy
שיר חדש
That would suggest that ''white'' as an identity would be useful for everyone with a British, Spanish, Greek or Russian background. Or ''asian'' for everyone with a Chinese, Pakistani, Thai or Khazak background. I'm not sure either is the case (ETA - not to mention all the people who are mixed.)
I see 'black' and 'white' as words of apartheid-speak that suit cultures built by such a system, but not cultures which have other kinds of outlooks.
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